Stop The Drop Part 2

A Bit About Me

Now that I am more than a year into my career, I thought I should put a brief write up about how I approach and play the game. Hopefully this will give anyone that reads this an insight into why I might sign a certain player, or play a certain way.

Tactics
I have 3 main tactics that I prefer to use. 4-3-1-2, 4-3-3 (with DM, 2xMC, AML, AMR, ST) and 3-5-2/5-3-2 (Wingbacks, 3xcm)
Generally, I try and choose the formation which best counters the opposition, however, I tend not to change if I've won the last match, as stability is always good.
All 3 tactics see me start games with a control mentality and a fluid team shape. If I'm happy with the way the result is going, I have been known to switch to counter mentality towards the end of games.
Regardless of formation, I like possession. My way of thinking is that the other team can't score if they haven't got the ball. So I like to keep as much of it as possible!

Transfers
I tend to invest heavily in youth. I send my scouts around the World assessing as much of the youth intake in each country as I can. Where my budget allows, I will snap up anyone that my best scouts believe have at least 4* potential, once they have 100% knowledge of them. I believe that even if these don't make the first team, I should be able to profit from them. This is especially useful when managing a club without unlimited funds, such as Middlesbrough.
Even though I look to concentrate on youth, I will sign older players if I believe they will improve my 1st team. I don't like spending large amounts on one player tho and will look at free agents, expiring contracts and transfer listed players where possible. I'm not afraid of moving a player on, regardless of reputation, if I don't think he's going to get much game time.
With my youth players, I try not to loan them out until they are at least considered good enough for league 2 football. And only ever accept loan offers if the player will be key/first team. Any high potential players that don't go out on loan, will be in my 1st team squad and I try and have 2 or 3 on the bench for every game, with at least 1 getting game time. I will make them available for U23/U18 games though too.

The Dream Continues

We did it...

An early goal was enough to get us to Wembley!

The semi-final draw hasn't been kind though as we face Manchester City. The other tie is Southampton vs last years winners Crystal Palace

March 2018

So apart from the FA Cup shock, a pretty average month for us with 3 straight league draws.

It hasn't helped our promotion hopes as we have now dropped to 4th. However, we are only 3 points off top spot (Sunderland) and 2 points off automatic promotion. It's very close at the top.
There are 6 games left and we don't have to play any of the other teams fighting to go up, so hopefully, we'll be ok. We have a 6 point cushion before falling out of the play-off places, so that should be a bare minimum.

April sees us play 5 of our remaining 6 league games, plus that FA Cup semi-final against Manchester City.

My loanees at Cardiff are doing well, with Dael Fry picking up young player of the month and Guirassy coming 3rd in the senior award.

Rumours of takeover talk are in the air again, but names have been mentioned yet. Watch this space...

The Dream Is Over

So our FA Cup dream came to an end as we went down 1-0 to Manchester City at Wembley.

We put up a good fight, but their quality just showed through in the end.

This means we can concentrate on the league. With just 2 games to go, this is how the top of the table looks...

End Of Season 2017/18

I was going to do an end of April update, but thought I'd hang on until we played our final league game. These are our latest results.

We started the month well, but struggled with the pressure after that.
We went into the last game of the season, a single point behind Brentford at the top of the table. They won their match, so we couldn't win the league, but our draw was enough to seal second place and promotion!

Final Table
This is how close it was at the top of the table

We finished the season as the Championships highest goalscorers. We'll need to work on our defence going into next season though.

Marten De Roon picked up player of the month for April.

While I came second in manager of the month.

All the players that I had promised could leave if we didn't get promotion are now happy again.

There's been some movement with the takeover, with a consortium led by Rod Petrie (Formerly of Hibs) in talks. So I am under embargo again, and can't make any requests. My contract is up at the end of June, so I would quite like some news soon.
Even so, the board have set our initial transfer budget at £27.7m, as well as increasing the wage budget by almost £500k.

Pre-Season Report 2018/19

So, its 25th June, the fixtures are out and we start our campaign away to Burnley. Time to start seriously thinking about the season ahead. But before we do, a quick round up of what has happened since the end of the season.

End of Season Awards

Mathoho was free, and is currently worth £9m, so he always had a good chance of getting signing of the season. An average rating of 7.41 helped him get fans player of the year too.
Husband only played 19 games in all competitions, so I'm surprised he picked up the young player award. Personally, I feel Boschilia was more deserving.

Our takeover fell through once again. It's frustrating not knowing what's going on, but at least Steve Gibson offered me a new contract.


However, he's less forthcoming when it comes to the new season objectives. Insisting I make £5k in player sales before any money becomes available. I've only spent just over £15m of the previously agreed £27m, so I'm not sure what he's up to.

I've stuck to the basics to give us a chance.
The 3 senior players I have purchased are Tomas Andrade (River, AMC), Albian Ajeti (Augsburg, ST) and Richairo Zivkovic (Ajax, ST). As well as some potential newgens.

The reason for the 2 strikers is that Crouch has retired and I don't think Will Grigg is quite cut out for the Premiership, so I'll be looking to move him on.

The board have arranged a training camp in Cadiz, Spain. We'll play a couple of friendlies while we are over there.

I've received a couple of interesting transfer offers for my young prospects. Mustafa Cinel, who came through my academy is a target for Leicester and Southampton, while Arthur Delon (who cost me £3.5m from Lyon) has seen a bid come in from Arsenal and is also wanted by Man City. I don't intend to sell either of them though!

Pre-Season Round Up

Our friendlies are over and results weren't too bad.

We finished up being invited to play West Brom in a testimonial for James Morrison. The players are now fully fit and hopefully ready for the challenge ahead.
We are predicted to finish 16th, so hopefully shouldn't face too much of a challenge in staying up. Apparently, none of our players are in the running for top goalscorer or best player. No surprise there.

During the close season, the stadium got expanded.


Its good to see the chairman still spending money even though he wants to leave. Rumours are starting to circulate about another takeover bid, but nothing received yet.

Transfers
We've had quite a few youngsters arrive that I had arranged transfers for in previous windows.

Unfortunately, most of them need work permits so have been shipped straight back out on loan. Andrade also needed a WP and I was hoping he would play a part this season.
Kaptoum starred at the World Cup for Cameroon, so it was nice to pick he up for free. While Fernandez comes in from relegated Swansea to help sure up our defence.
One player who did get a work permit was Takeshi Kikuchi.

He went to the World Cup and already has 5 Japan caps. He has good attributes in the right places and I intend to keep him this season and use him as back up.

As far as outs go, I've managed to move on Debuchy, Albertengo, Alegria and Clarke-Salter. None of which really made an impact. I did make around £5m in profit across the 4 of them though. There are some loans missing from the out list including Will Grigg. The attempt at selling him failed, so he will spend the season at Bristol City.

August 2018 and Deadline Day

The league campaign hasn't started well for us.

We had 2 men sent off against Burnley and another sent off against United. I put out a rotated side for the EFL Cup and we just scraped through.

Being short of funds at the end of the window, I was looking round for loans that could improve us. A number of available players weren't interested in coming to us, including Raheem Sterling and Bojan. Gerson was willing but couldn't get a work permit, and neither could Vitor Bueno, even though we had him last time we were in the Prem.
I did manage to bring in Asmir Begovic and Marko Rog. Because of bringing in Begovic, I was hoping to send out either Cardinale or Pereira so they were getting first team football, but we ran out of time...

September 2018

I was starting to wonder what had happened to my strikers, as we made it 5 games in a row without scoring. Thankfully, we managed to end that run!

The win against Stoke means we end the month in 13th (but we have the Monday night game this weekend and everyone else has already played).

In the EFL Cup, we next play Brentford at The Riverside.

We are under embargo again as Gibson once again looks to offload the club. I'm hoping it finally goes through this time! Before the takeover talks started, we did manage to strike up an affiliation with Fleetwood so that I'll be able to send some players on loan to them.

So we have a new chairman, Colin Cowie

He's currently considering my future, I'm hoping he lets me stay! Eddie Howe is currently unattached though, so if he wants him, there's not much I can do.

On a side note, I've just finished my Continental A license

That I keep my job (for now).

The new chairman has also pumped £20m into the club. He hasn't increased my transfer budget, but hopefully it's a good sign that he's willing to spend the cash when it's needed